THE STUMP JANUARY 4, 2012
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
JOHNSTON, IOWA -- When the final vote was tallied at the caucus precinct I was observing, at an evangelical church in the well-to-do outer exurbs of Polk County outside Des Moines, the woman who had spoken for Mitt Romney before the voting, Martha Fullerton, whispered under her breath to a fellow supporter: “We won by one vote.” She shrugged. “A win’s a win.”
But a short while later, as I was speaking with voters, a man rushed in. “Where do I vote?” he asked. Allen Stoye, a 40-year-old anesthesiologist, had been leaning toward Santorum because he wanted a “conservative”; because, as a doctor, he detested Obamacare and Romneycare; and because Romney personally reminded him of Al Gore in 2000 – “he says all the right things.” But he was busy with his young kids, he was new to the state, and wrongly thought he had until 9 p.m to vote. If he’d known better, he would have tied things up in the precinct, 97-97 (Ron Paul finished third with 62.) Stoye looked chagrined, but relieved when I explained that since the votes were counted in the aggregate statewide, it probably didn’t matter much that he had cost his candidate this one precinct.
Little did we know. As the night went on, it became clear that, in the absurdly small pool that is the Iowa caucus, and in this strange, strange GOP nominating season, a single vote was perhaps going to matter quite a lot after all. (There was another latecomer at my precinct—a 31-year-old first time caucus voter, a software developer and Paul supporter named Doug Wurth, who was also busy with a young kid, a newborn, and wrongly thought he had til 9. He was crushed to find out he was late. “He’s the most conservative, and he wants to bring our troops home.”)
More broadly, it became clear that Mitt Romney still has a big problem. Yes, he is leaving Iowa in better shape than he had last year, finishing in a knot with two challengers who presented little long-term threat, with no equivalent to John McCain waiting for him in New Hampshire. But still, the Hawkeye state had once again lain bare what Newt Gingrich would surely describe as his “fundamental” weakness. He collected no larger share of the vote than he had last time, even in a weaker field and with millions more spent on his behalf, and had been caught in the final days by a candidate with a tiny fraction of his resources, who had spent the whole campaign in the far shadows of the debate stage, who had lost his last election, in 2006, by 17 points.
I looked for Romney voters at my precinct to discuss this with, but they were hard to find. He had technically won the precinct, but his supporters, it appeared, had been those who had split for home as soon as the votes were cast, while others stayed on for other party business and to hear the results. Finally, I found a few. Bob Betz, 64, shrugged. “I voted for him because I think he’s electable,” said Betz, who voted for Fred Thompson in 2008. “I think Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, but he’s not electable.” A few minutes later, I found another, Marsha Aldridge. She said she identified with Romney’s business experience because she’s a human relations executive for an insurance company. She finds him “genuine,” which she realizes is not the common perception. “To me, he’s genuine. His life and his family speaks for him being genuine. I like his polish. What people talk about being plastic is what people in the business world have that you don’t see much outside of it.” As for Fullerton, the woman who had spoken on Romney’s behalf—well, she had simply read the same talking points that I heard repeated by other Romney supporters on talk radio as I was driving away from the caucus, obviously scripted lines about how Romney had balanced the budget in Massachusetts, in a state with 85 percent Democrats, etc.
The Santorum supporters, on the other hand, spoke for their man with conviction and deliberation, if not with giddy enthusiasm. “It’s just the way he comes across,” said Steve Schmidt, a 51-year-old insurance agent who is not an evangelical Christian. “He’s an honest guy. He’s a politician but not a career politician. He has core values.” Why not Romney? “It’s just something about him,” he said. “He’s going to tell you want to hear, and then do what he wants to do.”
Somewhat oddly, with so many supporters in the precinct, the Santorum team chose as its speaker before the voting its Florida campaign chairman, Jesse Biter, the owner of a tech company in Sarasota who joined up with Santorum a few months ago after seeing him speak in Florida. He spoke persuasively on the candidate’s behalf, but acknowledged at the end of his remarks that he was from out of state. Afterward, he told me that Santorum was in far better shape in Florida than people realized. Biter had chairmen appointed in most counties, and was getting a rush of supporters jumping from the Perry and Cain campaigns. “We’re really getting that anti-Romney group,” he said. “My email in-box is exploding.”
Which suggests that that maybe, just maybe, the coronation of the 25 percent man is still a few weeks off. Or, at least, that Rick Santorum is going to make the acquaintance of the Restore Our Future Super-PAC very soon, and that it will make his treatment at the hands of mischievous Google elves look gentle by comparison.
16 comments
"He's an honest guy. He's a politician but not a career politician. He has core values." I wonder if he understands why Santorum is not a career politician
- stanmvp48
January 3, 2012 at 11:55pm
I know this is off-topic, but it always plain baffles me when these characters like the doctor Alec mentions appear: people who (one assumes) became medical professionals to help and heal other people, but nevertheless seem to regard with detestation any plan to make medical coverage available to significant numbers of Americans who don't have it. He's "busy with his young kids," but apparently never has a thought for people who have young kids too but no health insurance.
- ironyroad
January 4, 2012 at 2:00am
I'm a doctor, irony, and these people leave me befuddled too. I think where it comes from is that American doctors are prisoners to their own fucked-up system, so deeply institutionalized that they can't see another way. They all experience getting paid as a bureaucratic nightmare, and they blame all that hassle on the government even though most of the trouble comes from the privates. Also, especially for proceduralists like that anesthesiologist, reimbursement per procedure has been cut significantly over the past couple decades largely as a result in changes to the Medicare schedule, so they tend to see government as the enemy. Finally, nobody goes into anesthesiology because he is called to help people. You do it because it pays well, the hours are well defined, you accumulate no long-term patients who might bother you at inconvenient times and very occasionally you have the thrill of securing a difficult airway and thereby saving a life.
- AaronW
January 4, 2012 at 5:55am
I'm not an anesthesiologist btw, I'm an infectious diseases physician. No on goes into ID for the money; you do it because both the diseases and the stories people tell about what they did to acquire the diseases are bloody fascinating.
- AaronW
January 4, 2012 at 6:01am
ironyroad The lawyer wife of one doctor tells me that she is afraid the ACA will raise costs and lower revenues.
- Nusholtz
January 4, 2012 at 7:25am
ironyroad. I strongly suspect that MD's recognize consciously or subconsciously that reform of the current system will reduce their income (pediatricians, family physicians, internists, gynecologists-- and perhaps IDs--may be exceptions). To paraphrase Upton Sinclair: It's hard to get someone to understand something when his livelihood depends on his NOT understanding it. Like the fact that the current system is unhealthy and unfair in many ways that reform should improve. Reform will almost-certainly reduce the cost of malpractice insurance--and probably paperwork. AaronW. I'm a PhD in Neuroscience lacking 3 months from an MD when I took a leave of absence to do research full time. And teaching -- if I could beat a bad stutter. Did so, for the most part. Never went back to complete 3 remaining months of clerkship for the MD. Would have been a neurologist, otherwise.
- drofnats1
January 4, 2012 at 7:39am
The anecdote from the HR exec has finally explained the behaviours I see in so many in her field. They're all Cylons too.
- Nari224
January 4, 2012 at 8:14am
Nari wins!
The Betz guy you interviewed is a case study in why I find it hard to predict how the Retardicans will act on a day to day basis. He pegs Mittens for the says-what-you-want-to-hear type, but thinks that bloated blob of feces that refers to itself as The Newt is the smartest candidate. I don't know wether to be hopeful or afraid.
- GSpinks
January 4, 2012 at 11:50am
As an upright American citizen whose mind is as narrow as the road he walks, Santorum is creepier than any of the GOP candidates. Why? Because he would actually work to turn America into a theocracy of his own making. Bachmann is just plain bat-shit crazy. Santorum on the other hand would work hard at turning back the clock on just about every progressive civil & cultural leap forward this country has made since the end of the Salem witch trials. As an upright American citizen whose mind is as broad as the Mississippi river I cross every morning to work, I see it as my duty to click on the "santorum" definition every chance I get to make sure that people are reminded of how creepy this guy really is.
- singlspeed
January 4, 2012 at 12:19pm
irony asks "I know this is off-topic, but it always plain baffles me when these characters like the doctor Alec mentions appear: people who (one assumes) became medical professionals to help and heal other people, but nevertheless seem to regard with detestation any plan to make medical coverage available to significant numbers of Americans who don't have it. " Irony I can add something to that anecdotally, but not because I'm a doctor but because my wife's entire family is in medicine. Mostly from what I can gather is that they see the worst of the worst, in working at Children's or neighborhood health clinics here in New Orleans. They see kids neglected by parents that don't care - not so much physically but just from ignorance and lack of effort. Patients that get free diabetes treatments, counseling, etc. and still make no life-style changes to help themselves. They see these people as less than deserving because after getting all of this help, these people make no efforts to help themselves. At the same time, they also find the work rewarding knowing they've helped a child or person and saved a life. After doing stints in public / private hospitals for their residency, they move on to the private practices where the pay is over the top and the hours are less than hectic. I think that this reasoning is completely understandable. It also illustrates the inherent contradictions that we as humans can have within.
- singlspeed
January 4, 2012 at 12:29pm
Thanks for the interesting comments in response, guys! I didn't expect that. (thinks: one way of getting the medical folks on TNR to reveal themselves heh heh!)
- ironyroad
January 4, 2012 at 12:31pm
The lesson from Iowa--and Alec's reporting--is that there are only a few Republican voters from the same quality-plagued robot factory that created Mitt Romney.
- polcereal
January 4, 2012 at 1:47pm
I should say that I'm not claiming that just because you're a doctor or other health care professional you should be automatically for the ACA or pro-Obama. There could be many pragmatic or even principled objections to the law and I accept that there are conservative views on health care provision that need to be taken seriously -- many of them embodied in the ACA, incidentally. What puzzles me is the vehemence, the anger. I mean, if someone "detests" the Massachusetts reform as well as the ACA then it goes beyond Obama to something more: medical professionals regarding access to health care as some kind of luxury good that only certain people are going to really want to have? Perhaps if more doctors had been more involved in health care reform in a positive way they might have more influence on its final shape. For what it's worth, too, doctors in Europe still take home pretty decent salaries and enjoy respect and status.
- ironyroad
January 4, 2012 at 10:03pm
irony I agree with you. In my casual following of the debate about healthcare issues over the years, I find the idea that healthcare as basic necessity in a civilized nation has been transformed into a "market commodity" or "luxury good" as both unseemly and bordering on unethical. I sometimes find the American Will to commodify and privatize literally every common good to be gut-feeling wrong and immoral. But that is me. Many people feel if a profit cannot be had and a person screwed in the process then what good is it for?
- singlspeed
January 4, 2012 at 10:20pm
First of all, what evolutionary theory can explain why so many of the candidates look like badly formed pod people-androids? I haven't looked that closely at Santorum until just now, but he looks as non-human as Romney or Palin? Secondly, My daughter out of law works at a private grade school for genius children. As she has mentioned to me, high-IQ children (and I presume they don't change much as they become so called adults) tend to be more emotionally unstable than the average population. Also, "tunnel vision" I think affects people of all intelligence levels. Some doctors are sensible and humane (mine is), but there is nothing that prevents many of them from being intelligent, over-educated, nasty, tunnel-vision-impaired twits.
- skahn
January 4, 2012 at 11:02pm
Years ago, my wife and I owned a business. One of our employees was putting her husband through medical school. He was about to complete his schooling. Obviously he was bright enough and energetic enough to get an M.D. She looked forward to ending her life of drudgery and being the wife of a doctor. He informed her that he had decided that he was going to continue in school and get a law degree as well. He informed her what wonderful things he could accomplish with both degrees. (There, indeed, doctors who also are lawyers, and some of them do wonderful things.) Caroline, our employee, realized that what her husband loved was going to school. He was going to become a professional student, supported by her. She told him where he could shove his education and divorced him. Forced to get a job, he went to work for a county medical clinic that served low-income people. Because he was dedicated to helping the poor? No. Because he could work 8-5 hours and go home and screw around as he wanted to and not be on call. So all kinds of people are smart enough and hard-working enough to become doctors.
- skahn
January 5, 2012 at 12:01am